‘There’s no need to be angry.’
‘It’s not me who’s angry,’ she told him, but she was lying. She’d done with the placating. ‘Basket weaving,’ she muttered. ‘I wish it had been purple paint I threw at you and I wish it had hit your head. Now, are you going to sue me for painting your feet? If so, there’s no lawyer in town but I can’t commend you strongly enough to leave town and find one. Preferably one in another state. I need to get on with my work.’
‘You’ve spilled your paint.’
‘Of course I have,’ she snapped. ‘And it was well worth it. Your brogues are drying, Dr Rochester. You need to go find some turpentine.’
‘You’ll never make a living.’
‘We’ll see.’ She stooped to lift her now empty paintpot from the pavement and was suddenly aware that someone was watching them. An elderly lady, a basket on one arm and a poodle dangling from the other, was gazing at the pair of them as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
‘It’s Ally,’ she whispered. ‘Ally Lindford. You’ve come home!’
Crimplene was very hard to escape, especially when Crimplene was intent on smothering you. Ally was enfolded in a bosom so ample she’d never felt anything like it, and it took her a few valiant tries before she could finally find enough space to breathe.
Doris Kerr. How could she have forgotten Doris?
She hadn’t. She hadn’t forgotten a single person in this town.
So who was this Dr Rochester? she wondered from her cocoon of Crimplene. Definitely a newcomer. But maybe not so new. Ally had been away for twenty years.
‘I saw the Dr A starting on the wall when I walked my Chloe last night.’ Doris had decided to take pity on her and hold her at arm’s length. ‘And I said to myself-a doctor? Yes. Just what we need. Dr Rochester needs help so much. But then I saw the pencilling saying massage and I said to myself we don’t need a massage parlour here-that’s the last thing we want in a respectable town like this-and I phoned Fred on the town council before I went to bed. But he said it’s not like I think-it’s a proper nice massage that you get when you hurt yourself and then he told me who it was who’d applied to run it and I was so excited. I thought I’d come down this very morning to see for myself and… Oh, my dear, it is so good to see you again.’
The Crimplene flooded toward her again and Ally managed to give Darcy a despairing glance before she was once again enfolded.
‘Um… It seems you two know each other,’ Darcy said.
‘Mmph.’ It was all Ally could manage.
‘And you’re using your grandpa’s name,’ Doris was saying. ‘Dr Westruther. How wonderful is that? I never did like Lindford. Evil is as evil does and…’ She caught herself. ‘Well, he was your father and he’s long dead so maybe I shouldn’t be speaking ill of him. But if your poor mother had just decided to go back to using Westruther…’ She gulped and hauled back, still hanging onto Ally but beaming across at Darcy. ‘Isn’t this just wonderful? A Dr Westruther in Tambrine Creek again after all these years.’
‘She’s a masseur,’ Darcy said, and Ally glowered.
‘Don’t say it like I’m a dung beetle.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, dear,’ Doris told her. ‘He’s the best thing since sliced bread is our Dr Rochester. Do you know, we didn’t have a doctor for five years before he came. And he’s so nice.’
‘I can see that,’ Ally agreed.
‘I did hold the ladder,’ he told her. ‘And I got blue hands.’
‘You scared me.’
‘Your grandpa was the doctor here?’
‘Grandpa died seventeen years ago.’
‘That’s when Ally left town,’ Doris told him. ‘Her father came and took her away. Nothing we could say made any difference. But…he looked after you, didn’t he, lass?’
‘He looked after me,’ Ally agreed tightly.
‘And now you’re back.’
‘I am.’ She made a determined effort to regain control-to pin a cheerful smile on her face and move forward. ‘And I’m here to stay.’
‘Where are you living?’
‘Here. Above the shop.’
‘You can’t do that.’ Doris seemed horrified.
‘Of course I can.’ How to explain to Doris that it was palatial compared to some of the places she’d lived in? ‘And now I’ve met the neighbour and he’s such a sweetheart.’
‘He is nice,’ Doris said, but she’d caught the tone of Ally’s voice and she was starting to sound dubious. ‘You two don’t sound as if you’ve started off on the right foot.’
‘She threw blue paint at my feet,’ Darcy said.
‘I’m sure she didn’t.’ Doris looked from one to the other-and then to Ally’s ladder. ‘You know, that doesn’t look all that safe to me, love.’
‘Just what I was saying.’ Darcy sounded almost triumphant.
‘Tell you what.’ Doris was clearly thinking on her feet. ‘The fleet’s in at the moment. Old Charlie Hammer’s funeral’s this afternoon so the fishermen can’t go out until they see him buried. And everyone’ll be sober until the wake. Why don’t I send a few of the men up here to finish your painting for you, dear? And anything else you might need doing. You know we all respected your grandpa, and everyone’ll be so pleased you’re back. And a doctor, too.’
‘She’s a masseur.’ Darcy was starting to sound a little desperate and Ally gave him her nicest, pitying smile.
‘Doctors can be massage therapists, too,’ she told him. ‘And massage therapists can be doctors.’
‘Are you telling me you seriously plan to make a living in this town?’
‘Of course.’
‘No one will come.’
‘I will,’ Doris said soundly. ‘I like a little massage. Not that I’ve ever had one, of course, but they sound nice. I was telling Henry only the other night that a rub would do me the world of good. Not like those tablets you have me on, Dr Rochester. I’m sure you’re doing your best, but Dr Westruther’s granddaughter… Ooh, I’m that pleased. And I’m sure Gloria will come as soon as she knows about you-her arthritis is something terrible-and my Beryl, and…everyone. I’ll just go and spread the word. It’s wonderful, that’s what it is. It’s just wonderful. Come on, Chloe.’
And with a tug on the unfortunate poodle’s leash, she sailed away to spread the word.
Dr Darcy Rochester was left staring at Dr Ally Westruther. Speechless. While she stared at him and tried to decide where to go from there.
‘You know, you’d really better go and take that paint off,’ Ally said finally. ‘We don’t want you to stay blue for ever, now, do we?’
‘You’re a local?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re really setting up for massage.’
‘That seems to be the intention.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said bluntly. ‘But take the “Doctor” off the sign. It’s misleading.’
‘Why is it misleading?’
‘I’m the town’s doctor.’
‘And you don’t want anyone else invading your territory?’
‘If anyone else wanted to invade, I’d be putting up the white flag before the first shot was fired,’ he told her. ‘Do you have any idea how big this district is? I’m run off my feet. But you’re not going to help.’
No, she thought bleakly. She wasn’t. But she may as well reassure him that she wasn’t pretending to practise medicine.
‘If anyone arrives with broken legs or snakebite, you can be sure I’ll send them to you,’ she told him. ‘As I hope you’ll send anyone with muscle soreness to me.’
‘You expect me to refer people to you when you call yourself a doctor?’
‘Don’t be elitist.’
‘Don’t indulge in deception.’
‘I’m not!’
‘Look, Ally…’
This was going nowhere. ‘I have work to do,’ she told him. ‘Your paint is drying.’
‘You can’t do this.’